Free Will Research Paper

INTRODUCTION A terrorist walks into a church during a midweek worship service and opens fire with an assault rifle. Several worshippers are either dead or wounded. Where was God during this tragedy? Why would an all-powerful God allow something like this to happen? The answer to this question from an orthodox Christian point of view is that evil is the result of God’s creation exercising their God-given free will. We live in a world that has been corrupted by the sin of one man – Adam. We are told in Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” All of the natural disasters, terrorist plots, diseases, famine, and humans exercising their free will to commit unspeakable acts such as murder, torture and rape are a result of the sin of one man. It should also be noted that even though these acts are evil by any account, they all happen under the divine control and sovereign will of God. God knows everything that will ever occur and will mold or shape the events of history in order to accomplish His purposes. It is indeed difficult for our finite minds to grasp such the idea of how such events fit into the sovereign plan of God for His creation. Some however do not accept that God knows and even controls …show more content…
In opposition to traditional theology, open theists believe that God must respond to His created beings in a “creative and resourceful” way because He allows us to exercise the freedom He has given us. Therefore, the future is “open” in the sense that there are still things that God cannot know because they are contingent on the future decisions of those to whom He has granted libertarian freedom. Human freedom is therefore, human freedom is incompatible with the perspective that God can know all future